


Five Lessons the Endless Have Learnt from Delirium

by deskclutter



Category: The Sandman
Genre: Angst, Dream is Exasperating, Fluff, Gen, Twelfth Night - Freeform, beans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-22
Updated: 2010-06-22
Packaged: 2017-10-10 05:52:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,260
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/96290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deskclutter/pseuds/deskclutter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Delirium, for all her madness, is quite wise.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Lessons the Endless Have Learnt from Delirium

1) manic

Battle surges all around in a clang and clatter of bronze on bronze, and war cries fill the air in primitive rage. Swords pierce; blood gushes; the ground stains. Some men will later throw up, while the older veterans congratulate the green ones for staying alive. Some men will not leave the field. Some men will weep and some will wonder how to tell their comrade's family that he did his best, but his best was far from enough, but for now there is the skirmish and the song of raging battle.

Berserkers. The word has come to describe those men who forget all but the bloodlust, moreso than all the others who do forget themselves, their families, their friends, their lives in the quest for glory. These men become the ultimate warriors, and Destruction can find no fault in them. He laughs, hearty and hale.

"Hallo, sister!" he calls, and she smiles at him, unstained, though blood spatters all around. "Did you see him? A perfect specimen, don't you think?"

"Oh yes," Delirium nods, tracing shapes into the sky. "I like him, um. Like that. In a rage. He is mine too, you know."

Destruction blinks. "I never thought of it like that, but you're quite right!" He surveys the carnage and beams. "We make an excellent team!"

(Many years later, he tries to explain the concept to Dream, but he has never had his brother's way with words and he is not quite sure that Dream actually makes the connection that _opposites can work together_ and not just because they are required for the other to exist.)

 

2) incoherence

"Um, hello. I think I am in the right place. With the garden and, um, many many of Destiny. Am I right?"

"_Delirium. What may I do for you today?_"

"Um. Hi. Did your book tell you to tell me that?"

"_I am the Book, and the Book is me, sister._"

"Oh. Um, is it nice, being a book? I've never been a book, because being an airwave is more fun. It is like surfing, but you can't see it, and that's um. What's the word that describes danger and fun and that feeling in your stomach even though you have no stomach because you're an airwave and airwaves don't have digestive tracts?"

"_..._"

"Um, okay, you don't have to answer."

"_You sought me for a reason, Delirium._"

"Don't you, um, know? Because of the book and the book knowing everything."

"_You must tell me why, or it will not work._"

"What happens if you don't like the why, and if you said something you could stop it, but because you're the mean old Book too, you can't, and then you won't be able to stop it. What happens then?"

"_It has not occurred thus far. Your query, Delirium._"

"...I'm, um. Looking for Dream. Not scary Dream, but um, Daniel Dream. Because I think he has gone inside for today and I want to find him but Barnabas isn't any help because he's not here."

"_...She who was Lyta Hall died today. He is grieving, out among the distant skerries of the Dreaming._"

"Oh. Um, thank you...Destiny?"

"_Yes, Delirium?_"

"What happens if you don't like the why, but you say something anyway and it doesn't stop it?"

"_...Find our brother, sister. Hope that it shall never come to pass again._"

"I bet you just don't want me to yell at you again."

 

3) irrational

"Love," Desire says, breathing out a cloud of smoke. "Ah, the greatest mystery. No, actually, it's terribly easy. Love is selfish, love is unkind, love is selfless, love is beautiful. _I_ ought to know. It's only that mortals have such ridiculous preconceived notions that those attributes oppose one another. I will grant you that love is insane, but nothing of worth isn't." It reclines against the sofa, resplendent in brilliant red. White smoke billows generously.

"Are you mine, then?" Delirium asks, sitting cross-legged and wide-eyed.

Desire barks out a laugh. "Not at all, little sister. I am Desire; I belong to myself."

Delirium thinks on this for a moment. Smoke curls around her like a contented cat. "That doesn't sound, um, fair. Not really."

"My dear sister," Desire says indulgently, casting fond gold eyes at her. "Whyever should life be _fair_? Our sister more than makes up for it in her impartiality. Now, shall we go over the rules once again?"

"Um, I don't think we need to. I have them written down on a list," Delirium says. "It's a long list, but the rules aren't very long, so it fitted in the list. I'm going to win this time."

"Are you now?" Desire asks, smiling.

"Um, I think so. Winning is the important, um, object."

"That's an interesting interpretation," Desire says, smile growing sharp enough to cut. "But we will be playing by the rules."

"Yes," says Delirium. "But the rules aren't fair."

"...Touche, sweet one!" Desire laughs.

 

4) lunacy

Death does not come only in the night, as so many seem to associate her with. She comes in the day, during the long hours of noon, when the city grows sleepy and people grow careless with steps and books and it really is the heights that kill people; and the cracks of rush hour, when drivers grow frenzied enough to smash and crash, and in the end she stand by a spiderweb of cracks shot through the windshield.

But she does not mind the night either, when it is peaceful and still, and she can remember the glint of starlight in a dead man's eye by watching the stars.

"What's the word," she hears faintly. "For a saddening and a maddening and hopeless and happy all mixed into a bubbling chest?"

"A heart attack?" Death says. "When maybe someone's granddaughter has just gotten married and you're proud of her for being the first of your grandchildren to get married, but she's grown up, and she can't sit in your lap any more, and who does that guy think he is, marrying your granddaughter? But she's married, and you've always had a weak heart from the smoking and all..."

The stars aren't bright enough, she thinks, tracing out the strands of messy hair in the sky. No, the glint's got to be the moon.

Ah, there. He's looking at her in puzzled exasperation. She's always liked that expression on him. It means she got through to him.

 

5) moonstruck

I like music, she said to him. Music is fun.

Perhaps so, he replied, non-committal, but she had not been deterred.

And I like funning, and heartbreak, because that can sometimes lead to fun, though in a sad way. I like pies, and drinks, pretty ladies, and nice boys, and I like the sea, and beans.

Hmm, he said. The beans we may not be able to fit in.

?? she asked.

It is of little consequence, he told her, but later that year there was a play that she went to with Destruction and it began, _If music be the food of love, play on..._ and she had giggled.

(And when she visited Destruction after she went away, she told him about it, and he said, ah! Then I wasted quite a bit of effort trying to teach him something he _already knew_. And she had laughed with her hand over her mouth while the sea breeze had blown against her face and Destruction grinned ruefully at her, and it was maybe a little bit like a heart attack with less of attacking.)


End file.
